Ben Stiller and his wife, Christine Taylor, are grateful that they found their way back to one another.
The Zoolander actor, 59, and Taylor, 53, briefly separated in 2017 before reuniting during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, the couple — who share daughter Ella, 22, and son Quinlin, 19 — aren’t taking a single day for granted.
“I think we both wanted it,” Stiller said of his reconciliation with Taylor during a Thursday, January 16, appearance on The View.
He continued, “In a relationship — we’ve been married for 25 years — you have to work at it. COVID happened and we all got in a house together with our family. I’m grateful. I’m so grateful we’re back together.”
Stiller admitted that sometimes exes shouldn’t get back together because it’s “not the right thing,” but for him and Taylor, “it was the right thing.”
“Now, every day that we’re together, we do not take for granted. I know I don’t,” the comedian gushed. “Because you know it could go away. That, to me, is the gift [of] our relationship is that we have that every day. I’m so happy that we’re [back together].”
Stiller also opened up about his reunion with Taylor in an interview with The New York Times published Saturday, January 11.
Stiller said his marriage was not “in a great place” after moving from California back to New York following the release of Zoolander 2, a flop that “blindsided” Stiller.
“There was a lot going on,” Stiller said. “When we separated, it was just having space to see what our relationship was, what my life felt like when we weren’t in that relationship, how much I loved our family unit.”
“It was like three or four years that we weren’t together but we always were connected. In my mind, I never didn’t want us to be together,” he continued. “I don’t know where Christine was, you’d have to ask her, but COVID put us all together in the same house.”
In a conversation with Drew Barrymore in 2023, Taylor said the reconciliation during the pandemic “was for us.”
“We got married very quickly,” Taylor recalled of their 2000 wedding. “We knew each other six months, got engaged. We were married within a year, and then had Ella the next year.”
“I think of us, life just, especially in this business and careers, a lot of work and family was always a priority, but I think Ben and I both sort of started to grow in different directions,” she added.
